Okay, I actually can't believe I forgot to blog about this a long time ago.
Naturally, you should all be using Firefox by now, and since you are, I'm going to tell you about a revolutionary new extension [people should really pay me for all the promotion I do :( ]
It's called AdBlock Plus.
It's a 30 second download, and a 10 second installation process.
Then a few extra clicks here and there, and you will never, ever, ever bump into another advertisement again. This extension blocks all of those annoying banners on the top of your page [like in hotmail], all of the ads down the side of the page [like news.com], and even all the text links and 'sponsored ads' on the right side of your google search results!
It just zaps them into non-existence.
Quick run-down:
1. Download the extension from here and folow installation prompts: http://adblockplus.org/en/installation
2. Go here and click 'subscribe' to the 1st, 2nd and 4th subscriptions. http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions What this will do is subscribe your new extension to pre-formed lists of almost every ad in existence, so every time your browser bumps into this ad, it knows to automatically block it.
3. Done!
Apart from a completely ad-free internet experience [which is unbelievably amazing], I love the fact that you don't get a fat 'BLOCKED' sign whenever an ad is blocked. Instead, it just isn't there and your content is rearranged so you don't have random free blocks of space. It looks totally natural.
Good luck. :D
Yay, I've found some awesome firefox tweaks/hacks/fun things to boost your internet speed. Which we all want, right?
Well I've messed around tons with Firefox's internal registry, so I'll only post the ones that have made the biggest difference to speed so far. To start off:
1. In Firefox's URL bar, type about:config and press Enter.
HTTP Pipelining
HTTP is the protocol that almost all web pages are transferred with. Using this protocol, you can send multiple requests to a web server before your client actually receives any of these requests. This is called 'pipelining'. If you're an internet whiz, it's a bit like the difference between dial-up and broadband - broadband allows you to access more channels, and pipelining is a similar concept.
1. In your about:config page, right click anywhere on the screen and choose New > Boolean > type network.http.pipelining. Make sure it says true on the last column on the right (the 'value' field), otherwise, just double-click it to set it to true.
2. Right click anywhere again, New > Integer > type network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and choose a value of 8.
3. Right click, New > Boolean > type network.http.proxy.pipelining, make sure it says true again, otherwise double-click to set it to true.
Yay done!
Interrupting Content Parsing
What this does, is tell Firefox to interrupt parsing [loading] a page to respond to a user event [such as you clicking on something]. So instead of waiting for everything to load, and then being able to use a page, you'll be able to use it in the middle of loading. Which is awesome for pages with a billion images you don't care about.
1. In the same window, New > Boolean > type content.interrupt.parsing and make sure it's set to true, otherwise double-click.
2. New > Integer > content.max.tokenizing.time > set to 2250000
Okay, those are the most important for now. :D
Good luck making firefox faster! [as if it's not already fast enough. Talk about being greedy.]
No hurry, Vista. Really.
So when this eventually finishes - in the year 2107, I'll be sure to learn my lesson and never move a file from one location to another on Vista again.
I, for one, would like to still be alive to use the file that took 146 years to copy.
((( 795Mb altogether - 531Mb remaining = 264Mb already copied.
264Mb/795Mb x 100 = 33.2% completed.
If 33.2% = time unknown, then 100-32.2 = 66.8% remaining.
And 66.8% = 35,536 days = approx 100 years.
Then 1% = 531.98 days.
Therefore, 100% = 53,197 days = 145.7 years to completely copy a file that's less than a gig. )))
Okay, firstly I'd like to apologise for it taking SO long for me to post a new entry. I've been busy, evidently.
Now, this post is just going to be about small random irritations, and how to eliminate them. Sometimes the smallest things are the most infuriating.
Windows only:
Disabling those "X Application has encountered a problem and needs to shut down" error messages in XP.
This annoying pop-up expects you to send an error report to Microsoft when your program crashes. Now why the heck would we want Microsoft to know exactly which programs are running on our PCs anyways?
The solution is simple.
1. Right-click on My Computer and go to the "Advanced" tab.
2. Choose the "Disable error reporting" option.
Done!
"Your computer might be at risk" popup.
How many of us have seen this popup:
To disable this:
1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Security Centre.
2. On the left hand side, you'll see a 'Resources section'. Click the link that says, "Change the way Security Centre alerts me".
3. You can choose which alerts to disable here. Since I don't have official anti-virus software, I disable the "Virus protection" option.
No more pop-ups!
Lastly, a cross-platform tip for Mac&Windows:
Here, I'll show you how to reduce Firefox's memory usage. By reducing the amount of memory it uses, it'll fractionally increase your overall computer speed. Soon, all the little bits of extra speed will add up. lol.
1. In Firefox's URL window, type about:config.
2. Now, right-click anywhere in the window, choose New > Boolean, and type: config.trim_on_minimize. In the next option, choose "True".
Done! What this des, is reduces the amount of memory it takes Firefox to run, when it's minimised and you're not using it.
And, of course.. if you're not using Firefox, it's about time to migrate over!
Firefox, Safari and Opera have proven to be safer browsers than Internet Explorer ever will be [namely because they're third-party browsers, w00t].
Hope this bunch of tips helps some of you out a bit more.
If anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments. :D
Over months and even years of using your computer, temporary and unnecessary files rapidly accumulate in hidden areas, such as temporary internet (and non-internet) files, browser caches, recently viewed documents, index.dat files, etc. These occupy valuable disk space, and clutter up your computer, making it far slower than it should be.
The solution? CrapCleaner!
This small program optimises your system by cleaning out unnecessary and unused files on your system, freeing up disk space and unclogging your registry. It also cleans traces of your online activities, such as the browser cache and other aforementioned things. Best of all? It only takes literally a few seconds to run! If you haven't gone through the process of housecleaning your computer before, you can expect CrapCleaner (aka CCleaner) to clean about 500Mb (half a gig of crap!), and all guaranteed under 30 seconds. When a friend was shown this last year, she was blown away that CCleaner emptied out 789Mb of junk in only 17 seconds, and reported faster computer speeds.
Here's where you can download CCleaner (for free!): 
For the geekier among us, ATF cleaner would be the cleaner of choice. A tiny, nifty little program, it is only about a Mb in size and does close to everything that CCleaner can do. Though it doesn't have as graphical a GUI as CCleaner does, it is great for those conscious about disk space. Get it at: http://www.atribune.org/content/view/19/2/
(Heh, I may as well be paid to promote these programs.)
If you're one of the millions with slow boot-up times (time it takes your computer to turn on) and lots of crashes, there is a way to improve the situation. It's called MSCONFIG.
I'm sure most people know that the more programs you have running on your computer at once, the more likely it is that your computer will either slow to a crawl, or even crash. What most people don't know is that every time you boot (start) your computer a whole mess of "hidden" programs load in the background. Some of these hidden programs are essential to the running of your system, but most aren't. Turning off some of these hidden programs can significantly increase your computer's performance and reliability.
To find out how, follow the steps below:
1. Hit Start, and Run.
2. Type into the Run box, msconfig
3. A window will pop up that will look a bit like this:
4. Press the "Startup" tab at the top of your window, and you'll come across this:
As you can see, every thing on that list that's ticked, starts up with your computer everyday! If you know some of them are useless, untick them. If you're not sure what some of them are, look at their path file (the middle column), for example C:\Program Files\AVG Anti-Spyware. Automatically, I know I don't need that to run in the background, so I would uncheck it. I can always start it up later on again, like I normally would (double-clicking the icon on the desktop, or wherever you want to run it from). I'd also uncheck MSNmessenger, Microsoft Office, etc. If you're still unsure, though, either ignore it and leave it the way it is, or google it, i.e. "jusched startup" will give you spot-on results for exactly what it is and whether you need it to run or not.
5. Click "Apply", then "Okay", and Restart your computer if it tells you to do so.
6. On your next restart, you'll get a little window pop up - just tick the checkbox right at the bottom which says "Don't remind me again" or "Don't show this box again" or something of the sort.
7. You're done! You should now have significantly faster load-up times.
The first time I tried this, I went from my computer taking 4 minutes to load, to only 45 seconds. Results will always vary, but if you put in the extra few minutes to google things you don't know, you'll have better results.
Good luck!
If any questions/problems arise, feel free to ask me and I'll be sure to help.
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